Once in a while I like doing a long, loving post about something completely inconsequential. Today the sky was blue and the mountains were calling, and I went for walk in search of sustenance. Sort of hunter-gatherer thing, you understand. On the other side of the mountain, life is simpler. This is really like country […]
Other treats
- izakaya
- ...
Ame Ni Mo Makezu, Ikebukuro (割烹 雨ニモマケズ)
Oh for goodness’ sake, will the stream of amazing restaurants never end? Just when I was getting a bit sick of myself for ordering the same nuta and bitter vegetables and raw fish and finishing with fried food and hot sake, along comes a place with creative food, killer atmosphere, good saki, and great prices, […]
- bar
- ...
Kibouan, Ikebukuro (希紡庵 きぼうあん)
Urban hiking. I just love walking in Tokyo. Today I was out for a medium hike, starting in Shin Okubo (just north of Shinjuku) and hiking to Ikebukuro to look for a couple places I had seen online but forgot to get links or addresses for. So you could say I was hiking four stations […]
- Other treats
- ...
Hachi Ramen, Takadanobaba (はち ラーメン)
I was out on a mission this afternoon – go to guitar stores, have ramen, urban-hike Tokyo, find an early-opener izakaya with Sunday hours, and get drunk. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, BY GUM. The guitar stores were in Shin Okubo today (Korea town, also interestingly invaded these days by people whose provenance causes them to open spice […]
Hyper Guitars, Shin Okubo (ハイパーギターズ)
Posting this somehow escaped me in the past, so let me just quickly say that this place is truly bizarre. They have a no-photo policy, which could only inspire me to stand artfully next to a display cabinet and take a panorama of the most important parts of the shop. This is the best vintage […]
- izakaya
- ...
Seikaiha, Tamagawagakuenmae (青海波, 玉川学園前)
The finest dining establishment in all of Tamagawagakuenmae. It’s a bold claim considering it’s the only place I’ve been to, but this is a pretty sweet izakaya, and TGGEM is a smallish, sleepy station. It’s nearly as good as Ibuki, which is at the next station, the relatively enormous Machida. So if you’re in TGGEM, […]
- izakaya
- ...
Manaita, Takadanobaba (真菜板, 高田馬場)
After not really having much fun at Shimomiya, and not even being able to drown our sorrows due to the ordering difficulties and overall stylistic incompatibility, Bird and I were desperate to go somewhere else. Since we were up for whatever, the conversation went like this: “Hey, there was another place I attached my eye […]
- izakaya
- ...
Shimomiya, Higashi Nakano (しもみや 東中野)
It’s been a while since I’ve seen this, and maybe you too. JR platforms can get completely jammed, especially when it’s the combined Yamanote-Sobu platform at Shinjuku. I was bound for the metropolitan hotspot of Higashi Nakano. [I jest, but Higashi Nakano also houses Tokyo’s single best sake bar, so it’s not exactly a joke.] […]
l’Auberge de L’Ill, Nishi Azabu (オーベルジュ・ド・リル トーキョー)
You can’t go wrong with this as an introduction. You’re walking down a perfectly normal, maybe even a little grubby, street in Nishi Azabu after getting off the train at the quiet end of Nogizaka and walking through the tunnel by the museum, and suddenly you see something that looks a British aristocrat’s house. This […]
- izakaya
- ...
Fuusan, Machida (風燦 原町田店)
Tuesday night saw the team back in Machida for an away game. Woody recommended the Big Fuu to me last year after I checked in at Ibuki, but as soon as I walked up to it I realized that I had seen it last year on that Ibuki trip and decided not to go. Which […]